Lumoria
The Lumoria campaign, originally titled Project Lumoria, is a mod of Halo: Combat Evolved, developed by TM Mapping Team. Initially released on it's own on November 26th 2010 for Halo: Custom Edition, a vastly updated version was released by the Custom Mapping Team (CMT) and included with Halo SPV3 in the 2019 update on July 6th. It tells the story of a group of Marines aboard the UNSC Endless Horizon, after they escape the Fall of Reach, discovering the strange Forerunner world of Lumoria, the events of which happen in parallel with the Battle of Installation 04. In place of Master Chief, players, instead, control a female SPARTAN-II, May-017 (called May-073 in the original mod). The original version features gameplay, vehicles and weapons identical to Halo: Combat Evolved, albeit with its own environments that seem to be mostly based on CE's 2nd mission, Halo. The SPV3 version has improved graphics, unique weapons, some new vehicles and enemies from SVP3's main Halo campaign. The story was also slighty changed, despite the mission objectives in both versions remaining the same. Campaign In the original mod, Project Lumoria was presented as a 4 part mini campaign. For it's SPV3 rerelease, the final 2 missions were merged into one, due to their length being shorter than the first 2, to make it into a 3 part story. Characters * May-017 * Sergeant Brandon Keifer * ONI Agent Jayne Ethan Joness * Scarecrow * Lor' Darram * 734 Antecedent Sage Story Lumoria is set right after the Fall of Reach. The events take place at the same time as the main campaign, but in an entirely seperate corner of the galaxy. Just before Reach was glassed by the Covenant, Sergeant Brandon Keifer, a highly trained ODST, and ONI Agent Jayne Ethan Joness rescue May-017, a female SPARTAN-II whose suit resembles John-117's. Together, with a large group of other Marines and ODST's, they escape the destruction of Reach on the Endless Horizon, a UNSC frigate filled with many obsolete weapons and equipment, and one of the few human vessels not kitted out to deal with the Covenant, instead tasked with dealing with Marine deserters and insurrectionists. They quickly plot a course through subspace based on coordinates found inside an ancient Forerunner structure on Reach. The Endless Horizon arrives in orbit around a mysterious planet called Lumoria. On the planet is a single Covenant cruiser. Lumoria is littered with Forerunner structures and tunnels that run through the planet. Joness leads a small research team down to the surface to study the achitecture and learn what the Covenant's interest is in the world. However, soon after, the crew on board the Endless Horizon lose contact with Joness' team, and Brandon and May lead a rescue mission with the aid of Scarecrow, pilot of the Pelican dropship Delta 137. During the mission, May learns that several Covenant ships came to Lumoria 25 years ago and, after entering restricted areas, met with resistance from Forerunner Sentinels and Enforcers. A few years later, an entire Covenant fleet appeared, causing Lumoria's defense systems to counter the threat with a powerful EMP. That, coupled with the ever-intensifying war against humanity, caused the fleet to withdraw from Lumoria around 22 years ago, save for one ship that has remained on the world ever since. After battling through Covenant and Sentinel forces, May and Brandon rescue Joness, who informs them that he has discovered that Lumoria is actually an artifical planet built entirely by the Forerunners. The world acts as a stronghold for much of the Forerunners technology that the Covenant are salvaging. But he also says the planet is an enormous database that houses a record of the locations of all planets in the entire galaxy and lists all their inhabitants, and that the Covenant are attempting to find out the location of Earth from it. They then escape but are chased by the Elite Admiral of the Covenant on Lumoria, Lor' Darram, who is equipped with a Forerunner teleportaion device and active camouflage. Afterwards, May and Brandon lead the Marines and ODST's on an assault against the Covenant forces around the main facility on Lumoria that houses the database, while searching for survivors of Pelican dropships that had been previously shot down. The Covenant have barely stepped foot in the database facilty for years due to heavy Sentinel resistance and have named it the Expulsion Zone. During the operation, Brandon hacks into the Covenant Battle Net and learns from them that the nearby facility is also believed to house some kind of superweapon. Wanting to take control of it for themselves, May and Brandon head to the facility and defeat the Covenant defense there and the swarms of Sentinels around the structure. Inside they discover the superweapon, only to find that it is sentient and recognises them as humans. The superweapon, 734 Antecedent Sage, is in fact a rogue Guardian that turned on its Forerunner creators thousands of years ago after being inspired by the ways of the Flood and siding with them. With the other Guardians combined, however, the Forerunners were able to defeat Antecedent Sage and imprisoned it beneath the surface of Lumoria, where it has remained ever since. The presence of the human Reclaimers has awoken the Guardian and it has once again emerged with the intention of a forced everlasting peace by finding the Flood and unleashing the parasite upon the galaxy. With the release of 734 Antecedent Sage, the Covenant, now scared and surprised by the Guardian's appearance, converge on and fortify the database facility to hasten their mission to find Earth. May and Brandon lead and all out assault on the facility, the Endless Horizon itself taking part, fighting through Covenant, Sentinels and Enforcers to get to the main terminal so as to prevent the Covenant from finding Earth and to uncover a way to stop the Guardian, which has also appeared at the facility, charging it's engines in preparation for its jump to slipspace. The terminal is guarded personally by Lor' Darram, who kills Brandon after engaging him and May in battle. However, May defeats the Admiral, using his own Energy Sword to deliver the killing blow. Joness then approaches the terminal, erases Earth from its records and, under May's order, detonates a powerful EMP from within 734 Antecedent Sage that envelops the whole surrounding solar system. The Guardian is finally destroyed, but at the cost of permenantly disabling all Forerunner, Covenant and human technology on the planet, leaving May and all of her allies stranded on Lumoria. The campaign ends with an epilogue from May, saying that even though they have no way to leave the planet, and that it could be years before they are found, if they ever are, every marine who died there, especially Brandon, fought for what they believed in. She also laments on the sacrifices made by soldiers, Marines and SPARTAN's alike, that they can only hope their actions on Lumoria were worth it, and that SPARTAN's never really die. They just go missing in action. Difference's from the original mod Although the environments and mission objectives are the same in both the original mod and the SPV3 remake, there are many differences between the two. The story was altered to feature a Guardian in the SPV3 version, the title entity from Halo 5: Guardians, as originally 734 Antecedent Sage was an enormous Forerunner A.I. construct that looked after Lumoria, much like 343 Guilty Spark did for Installation 04 in Halo CE. In Project Lumoria, 734 Antecedent Sage was created by the Librarian and was left to oversee Lumoria alone for 8000 years before the Librarian returned with word of the Flood and the Forerunners plan involving the Halo Array. The Librarian tasked Antecedent Sage with looking after the humans that would be brought to Lumoria so that it can be used as a conservation world to save them. The terminals found in the campaign featured recorded conversations between the Librarian and the A.I. Over the next several millenia, 734 Antecedent Sage would carry out this mission while questioning his own exsistence, up until May and the Marines' appearance on Lumoria, by which time he appears to have become rampant. At the end, Joness, simply called the Scientist in the original mod, uses the final terminal to disable Antecedent Sage's shields so that the Endless Horizon can bombard and destroy the A.I. The Marines then leave Lumoria instead of becoming stranded there. The backstory of the Endless Horizon's purpose on Lumoria was also slightly altered. Rather than escaping Reach, it can be assumed from the opening of the original version that the events of the campaign occur before the Fall of Reach. The UNSC bans the exploration of new worlds, so all human assets in the galaxy can concentrate on the war effort against the Covenant. One scientist (the character of Joness in the remake) defies this rule and travels to the newly discovered Lumoria with a group of Marines as escort. Once there, the Covenant arrives, kills most of the Marines there and captures the scientist. Some Marine survivors set up a distress beacon, to which the UNSC responds, sending the Marines led by Major Kallis, along with Sergeant Brandon Keifer, accompanied by May-073 (as she is designated in the original mod), to rescue them aboard the Endless Horizon. Other differences include the removal of cutscenes in the remake. The cutscenes in question generally delve further into Halo's lore, referencing things like the Precursors. These were removed, possibly to maintain story momentum and to keep the campaign more mainstream. Major Kallis, the commander of the Endless Horizon's militay force, is a character from the original that seems to have been removed from the SPV3 version as he appears in the deleted cutscenes. Although Scarecrow is still featured in the new version, he is never seen as the cutscenes he appears in have been removed. The captain of the Endless Horizon is also an omitted character from the original. Engineers, an enemy that was cut from Halo: Combat Evolved, briefly appear in one section of the 3rd mission in the original mod, floating over a crashed Covenant Spirit dropship. Although they were cut, an in-game model and basic animations for them exist in the game files of Halo: CE. They have been removed in the SPV3 version however. A particular Elite is encountered wielding an Energy Sword in one hand and a large shield in the other, somewhat similar to a Jackal Shield. This enemy type is inspired by an Elite seen in the Halo: Combat Evolved E3 2000 trailer, that carries the same shield. There are a few more of them in the original mod. Sentinel Enforcers appear in both versions, but a new gold Sentinel, that replaces the black Sentinel Snipers from SPV3's main campaign, is featured in the remake. In the original, however, the flying Drone enemies from Halo 2 make an appearnce in several encounters but have been omitted in the remake. Also, the original features independant Covenant turrets in certain areas, that can be turned on your enemies if hacked at the control panel, these have been replaced by Anti Aircraft Wraith's in the new version. The original also features Covenant generators that disable use of all UNSC vehicles, used to prevent players from proceeding the story prematurely in the second level. These, however, were removed in the SPV3 version. In the original, May was represented by using Master Chief's character model from Halo: Combat Evolved, but with a female voice actor. In the SPV3 version, a unique character model has been developed for her, which is heavily based on Master Chief's appearance but far more feminine. She also has a different voice actor with revised and extended lines added. The other characters also have new voice actors. Lor' Darram, in the original, resembles a regular Spec-Ops Elite from Combat Evolved, but with a curved helmet. In the remake he has a regular shark-shaped helmet but sports a unique black and gold colour scheme for his entire combat harness. The music is also different between the two versions. While the old mod mostly features the original score by Martin O'Donnell from Halo: CE, it also has segments dominated by tunes involving rock guitar riffs and solo's. It also includes the song Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin, that was featured in Halo 2, during the assault against 734 Antecedent Sage in the last mission and the final battle against Lor' Darram. In the remake, Jafet Meza's version of O'Donnell's work that was recorded for SPV3 is featured instead and the guitar based songs, including Blow Me Away, have also been replaced with Meza's score. Gameplay The Lumoria campaign puts players in control of May-017, rather than John-117. Through most of the campaign, players are accompanied by fellow Marines and ODST's. In particular, Brandon and Joness, the latter only accompanying the player and Brandon in the last assault before the final battle, can both be revived if knocked down, ala Halo 5 (in the original mod, they are simply invincible). Like revivable allies in SPV3's main campaign though, they cannot revive May. Marine allies here seem to be more helpful than in the main campaign, being more even in number with the Covenant and are also able to drive vehicles in certain cases. Many weapons in this campaign are unique and are not featured in the main campaign. All these weapons have been balanced to create a well diversed sandbox that is featured soley in these missions. The idea is that the Endless Horizon is loaded out with older weapons. Such as a silenced pistol, an SMG with higher ammo capacity and faster fire rate but is more difficult to control, an Assault Rifle that fires faster but is less accurate, a Battle Rifle that lacks a scope but fires bursts of 4 shots instead of 3 and a DMR that is stronger but causes severe flinching and has less ammo reserves. The Grenade Launcher, that replaces the Rocket Launcher, has more ammo but must be reloaded after every shot. The Covenant also have new weapons including and a modified Brute Plasma Rifle that fires in massive bursts but is inaccurate at mid to long range and also overheats sooner and must be manually cooled down. The Spiker, a weapon from Halo 3 that is similar to the Piercer but dosen't fire in bursts, is also featured here. The Needle Grenade, that replaces the Frag Grenade in The Commander and The Commander: Evolved, has taken the spot of the Cluster Grenade in the Lumoria campaign. The Elite Admiral, Lor' Darram, wields a never before seen weapon, which appears to be a Particle Carbine but fires green explosive plasma bolts, like a weak, rapid-fire Fuel Rod Gun. Apart from the already mentioned weapons, all Covenant weapons are the same as the main campaign, but a new Forerunner weapon has been added. Replacing the Sentinel Sniper Beam, gold Sentinel's will drop the Sentinel Light Rifle which resembles the Sniper Beam, but is gold with purple lights and fires in accurate, concentrated bursts instead of one continuous beam. It also has a zoom function similar to the Battle Rifle or Particle Carbine, where it will fire much faster but it also over charges quicker. The incinceration effect of the Sentinel's weapons is still present for the Sentinel Light Rifle. Vehicles are mostly the same as SPV3's main campaign, with the exception of a green Covenant Shadow that has a Fuel Rod Cannon mounted instead of a Shade Turret. The VISR armor ability has been replaced with THERMAL VISION, which highlights the enemies body heat, making cloaked Covenant visible. Many enemies with Active Camouflage appear in the levels, with a new function that grants the ability to Grunts, Brutes, Jackals and Skirmishers unless the nearby cloaking array is deactivated. While the RADAR ability is not featured, both HEALTH REGEN and SPRINT are unchanged. Features Weapons *-Unavailable for player use. Vehicles *-Unavailable for player use. Equipment Developer Notes TBA Gallery TBA Trivia * During the cutscenes where Lor' Darram chases May, Brandon and Joness and just before the final battle against him, its actually possible for May to kill the Elite Admiral as she shoots him before he teleports away during the cutscenes. After he teleports, however, he'll reappear alive and undamaged. * The remake of this mod was released by CMT, despite them not originally creating it. * During the ending, even though the EMP within 734 Antecedent Sage was detonated, destroying all forms of technology in the solar system, the Pelican carrying Brandon's body flys away, and seems to be working normally. * Although the thumbnail for Fight For The Future shows May holding an Energy Sword in both the original mod and the SPV3 remake, the weapon itself is not available for the player to use in gameplay. She only uses it during the ending cutscenes.